Darwin and the True Story of the Dinosaurs

When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, he forever altered the way people looked at their place in the world—humans were just another animal species that evolved from more primitive life forms. After graduating college, Charles was hired as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle where he would collect the specimens he would use to make the case for biologic evolution through natural selection. By the time he returned to England in 1836 he was a celebrity, but it would be more than 20 years before he published his groundbreaking work. Darwin’s theory ultimately helped Richard Owen solve the riddle of the enormous fossils found all over the world—they were not dragon bones of lore, but the remnants of extinct species that once inhabited the earth. Darwin and the True Story of the Dinosaurs is a fast-paced, entertaining biography of the naturalist who changed humankind’s understanding of its origins. In addition to its lively story, it includes 220 illustrations, a glossary, and sidebars covering related topics, from fossils to continental drift to medicine in the 19th century.

Luca Novelli is a writer, artist and journalist whose books about science and nature have been translated around the world.?In 2001 he received the League for the Environment Award, and in 2004 he won the Andersen Prize for popularizing science.